The Red Era: Starting from a Truck Driver

Chapter 307 Soy Sauce Factory

Individual contracting of state-owned enterprises began to quietly become popular in 1985.

The so-called contracting does not mean that the enterprise is directly given to you. It means that the higher-ups are not responsible for profits and losses, and the factory is still owned by the state. But you can pay a fee to contract it.

The contracted enterprises are basically loss-making. A small processing plant may be contracted for a few thousand yuan. Medium-sized factories, machinery factories, chemical plants, etc. may have to buy equipment for hundreds of thousands of yuan, but the contract fee is only tens of thousands of yuan.

This large factory may have equipment and factory buildings with assets worth tens of millions, but it can be contracted for only hundreds of thousands or millions.

Because these enterprises are often not considered as fixed assets, only whether they are making losses or not. The more losses they make, the cheaper the contract will be. This leads to the emergence of new termites, who deliberately let the originally profitable enterprises gradually become loss-making, and then contract them privately.

Jiang Cheng took his family on a cruise in Hong Kong for a day, and had seafood barbecue on the cruise. Lying on the cruise, basking in the sun and eating fruit was very comfortable.

When in Hong Kong, Jiang Cheng often thought that it was okay for him to hide the secret of having a space. Was it wrong to hide his rich identity from Zhou Lingying and her children? If he didn't hide it, he could lead them to such a comfortable life.

After leaving Hong Kong, he even spent two days with Zheng Ke and his daughter Zheng Shuang before returning to Changcheng.

On the way back, he passed by several restaurants he owned and put the game they collected into the space.

When driving back to Changcheng, Jiang Cheng got a lot of fruits and some fish and shrimp. Fruits are now the family's favorite. Common food, pork, chicken, duck, and ordinary fish can be bought directly in the market. The only difference is the price if you have a ticket or not.

The fish and shrimp that Jiang Cheng got were naturally hard to buy on the market. This time he got knife fish and river shrimp.

Jiang Cheng got home in the afternoon, and Zhou Lingying was playing poker with someone in the corridor. The two children were sent to kindergarten, and now Zhou Lingying finally had some free time every day.

"Jiang Cheng, when you were away, Lao Li sent someone to look for you. It seemed that he had something to tell you." Zhou Lingying greeted him immediately when she saw her man coming back.

The relationship has become a little dull. In the past, every time Jiang Cheng came back from outside, Zhou Lingying would put down the things and things in her hands as soon as possible, no matter if she was playing cards with others, chatting, or washing something.

"Got it." Jiang Cheng responded, put the things in his hand in the side room, looked at the time on his watch, and thought about going to District Chief Li's house after dinner.

Jiang Cheng did not disturb Zhou Lingying from playing cards. They were gambling, winning or losing a dime in a round. If she was lucky, she could win a dollar or two a day.

It was past four o'clock, so they stopped playing and went home to prepare meals for their children.

"What does this Lao Li want from you?"

"How would I know? I'll just go to his house after dinner."

When Zhou Lingying came back to the room after playing cards, she saw Jiang Cheng lying on the sofa watching TV, so she couldn't help asking him. Old Li is now the district chief of their area, Li An, the director of the street office at that time.

"During the children's summer vacation this year, shall we all go to Sijiu City for a visit?" Zhou Lingying stood next to Jiang Cheng and said while massaging his shoulders.

"Yes, you have a lot of money, so take it all with you. Go to Sijiucheng and buy a house with a courtyard. When your daughter grows up, maybe she can get into a good university in Sijiucheng." Jiang Cheng replied.

Although Jiang Cheng had a lot of money, he could buy some houses privately. But he bought too many houses and couldn't explain to Zhou Lingying the source of the money.

Jiang Cheng spent all his savings on the house he bought in Shanghai. This way, when people go to Shanghai, they don't have to explain anything when they move in.

But buying a house in Sijiucheng is also an investment. If she lives in Sijiucheng, she has to find a reason to explain. In addition, Zhou Lingying has been dealing with foreign exchange in recent years, and she doesn't dare to deposit the money in the bank. It's better to buy a big yard in Sijiucheng this year.

"Okay, you have the final say on what's going on outside." Zhou Lingying leaned on Jiang Cheng's shoulder, thought for a while, and then replied.

According to her thinking, there is no intention to buy a house. This house has always been allocated by the higher authorities. Even if the house she lives in now was bought with money, it was only one-third of the cost price.

But if you want to buy a house in Sijiucheng, Jiang Cheng has already said that a good house costs a lot of money. And considering that there are so many children, and there will be sons-in-law and grandchildren when they grow up, if you want to buy a house, you have to buy it all at once. According to Jiang Cheng, it is more appropriate to buy a big yard.

It’s just that there are few courtyard houses in Changcheng, so if you buy one in the old city, you can only live there occasionally.

So Zhou Lingying didn't quite understand Jiang Cheng's behavior, but the fact that the family had too much money made her irritable. She didn't know how to spend it, and now even if she was willing to spend money on food and drink for the children, she would buy new clothes every year.

Unlike some families with many children, where the eldest child's clothes are too small for the second child, and the second child's clothes are too small for the third child, the family only buys slightly larger clothes, and the price is not too expensive. When they are worn out, they are given to people in need.

The money she earned from foreign exchange this month was enough for Zhou Lingying to use for a year. She often felt uneasy about having so much money at home.

Just buy a house. As Jiang Cheng said, just in case you want to move to the capital in the future.

After agreeing to buy a house in Sijiu City during the summer vacation, Zhou Lingying went to prepare meals.

Around five o'clock, Jiang Cheng's second, third and fourth daughters came back first. They saw Jiang Cheng's car at the intersection and knew their father was back, so they all ran into the house.

The eldest child, Jiang Zhaozhao, now has to go to the kindergarten to pick up the fifth and sixth children after school every day, so he comes back a little later.

"Dad, did you bring us any gifts this time?" Jiang Panpan leaned on Jiang Cheng and said when she came back.

"Bringing fruits can be considered gifts, and there are also drinks." Jiang Cheng said lovingly while touching Jiang Panpan's head.

"Dad, you must have brought other things for us." Jiang Niannian said.

"Sister is right." Jiang Sisi hugged Jiang Cheng and nodded seriously.

"You big-headed ghost." Jiang Cheng said while kneading Jiang Sisi's face.

As children grow older, it becomes harder and harder to please them. In the past, a little biscuit, some candy, or a bottle of drink would make them happily surround me.

Now that they are older, they could still be pleased with dolls a few years ago. But now the older ones don’t like to play with dolls anymore. The most important thing is that there are more children of different ages, and some people like some things while others don’t.

"Okay, this time Dad has brought you gifts." Jiang Cheng stood up and said with a smile.

It is impossible for him to prepare gifts for his children every month. Sometimes when he sees something outside that is suitable for his children, he will buy some.

If there really is no suitable gift, you can get away with some snacks. But Jiang Cheng likes to see his children surrounding him in surprise because of the gifts he brings.

Jiang Cheng took the briefcase that was placed aside and reached into it. He took out a bunch of plastic electronic watches. Because they were made of plastic, the watch straps were white, red, pink, yellow, etc. "Whoever kisses dad first gets to pick the color they like first." Jiang Cheng said as he put the watches on the table.

Then he was drooling all over his face. Amidst everyone's cheers, Jiang Zhaozhao came back with Jiang Ping and Jiang Mengmeng.

When she saw her sister distributing plastic electronic watches, she happily called Jiang Cheng "Dad" and was about to go and get one.

"Sister, we all have to kiss dad before we can take it, and you haven't kissed him yet." Just when Jiang Zhaozhao was about to take the watch, Jiang Sisi spoke.

"No need, just take it if you like it. Pick a watch and dad will teach you how to adjust the time." Jiang Cheng said.

Jiang Zhaozhao was already twelve years old, so she should be thirteen in lunar age. Even if they were father and daughter, Jiang Cheng was too embarrassed to kiss her casually.

However, Jiang Zhaozhao took the watch, immediately walked to Jiang Cheng, and kissed Jiang Cheng, which made Jiang Cheng very happy.

These watches are just toy watches in Hong Kong. They have very simple functions, and can only adjust the time. They may break down after a short time. In this era, it is really worth showing off to children in China when they take them to school.

Jiang Cheng told them how to adjust the time, and asked Jiang Zhaozhao to keep the rest. He also told them that this was a toy watch, not valuable, and that they could give one to any good friend they knew.

However, this watch may not be valuable in Hong Kong, but it is actually very easy to fool people in China now. It is easy to be deceived by selling it for only ten dollars.

Soon it was time for dinner, and the children who were wearing watches were showing off in front of Zhou Lingying. Even Jiang Ping and Jiang Mengmeng, who were in kindergarten, wore one, but they were just clamoring to play with it.

Even if it is a toy watch, I won’t let a few-year-old child take it to kindergarten, as they can’t tell time. But they just want to wear one when they see their older sisters wearing it.

After Jiang Cheng finished his meal, he immediately went to Li An's house. They were old acquaintances for many years, so Jiang Cheng didn't need to bring any gifts, he just drove over empty-handed.

When Li An was the director of the subdistrict office, he lived in an ordinary house. Now that he is the district head, he is allocated a building.

When they arrived at Li An's house, he had just finished his meal. When Li An saw Jiang Cheng coming, he took him directly to the study.

"Old Li, what happened? Why did you send someone to my house to look for me?" Jiang Cheng asked with a smile.

"Jiang Cheng, I have something to ask you. You drive for the boss from Xiang Jiang in Shenzhen. Is that company called 'Jiang Donglai'? Is the 'Jiang Donglai' shopping mall that is about to be completed near the bus station also located there?" Li An did not beat around the bush and asked directly.

"Yes, I told you before. What's the problem?" Jiang Cheng said with some confusion when asked.

Jiang Cheng drove for a foreign company in Shenzhen, and some people with good connections in Changcheng had told him the name of the foreign company. So Li An asked this question again, and I wonder if he has something to do that will involve Jiang Donglai.

"No problem. It's not a big deal to come to you, but it may be a good thing for you." As Li An said this, he found his bag and took out some documents and gave them to Jiang Cheng.

Jiang Cheng took the document and immediately flipped through it, but he was also confused. It was a factory document for the city, and Jiang Cheng didn't understand why Li An showed it to him.

"Take a look at the financial statements at the bottom." Li An reminded Jiang Cheng of the key points to look at.

"This report of income and expenditure~~ shows a loss. The soy sauce factory is losing money, which doesn't seem right. Every household needs soy sauce, so how can it still be losing money?" After seeing the income and expenditure, Jiang Cheng understood the problem, but he still didn't understand why Li An asked him to look at this.

"Do you have any connections to get the soy sauce to sell in Jiangdonglai in other places? If so, how about contracting this soy sauce factory to you. You used to be very capable in driving a truck and you can get all kinds of supplies. This should not be difficult for you." Li An said.

After saying this, Li An started to prepare tea leaves to make a cup of tea for Jiang Cheng and himself.

Jiang Cheng didn't expect that Li An wanted him to contract a soy sauce factory. This soy sauce factory was under Li An's jurisdiction and had been losing money for the past two years.

Jiang Cheng knew that in recent years many state-owned enterprises would gradually subcontract to individuals, and the low subcontracting fees would be a real bargain for those who wanted to open their own factories.

But Jiang Cheng is rich, so taking advantage of this is not very meaningful to him. He will indeed set up some processing plants in the future to process some safe and healthy food and supplementary food for his own production and sales.

Just like the later "Mou Donglai", because of the food additives problem, they are doing their own inspections. Some vegetables and foods that exceed the drug limit would rather be out of stock than cheat people.

Later, "Mou Donglai" started to grow its own bean sprouts, produce beer, soy sauce and the like.

But in this era, everyone is more down-to-earth in doing business. Many places cannot afford to use fertilizers, and there are no pesticides. There is no need to worry about food safety issues.
In the countryside, if you see tomatoes and cucumbers, you can just pick them, wash them in the ditch, and then eat them. Even if you don't wash them, you can wipe them on your body and eat them directly if you feel they are clean, without worrying about the problem of pesticides.

So when there is no food safety issue, Jiang Cheng doesn't want to bother with these things.

"Old Li, judging from the area of ​​this factory, it is not that big. Why are there so many employees? A soy sauce factory needs so many employees." Although Jiang Cheng did not intend to take over the soy sauce factory, it was his first time to come into contact with an enterprise that could be contracted, so he looked at the information carefully out of curiosity.

"This is actually the main reason why the soy sauce factory is making losses. It's not that there are no people who want to contract out the soy sauce factory. But they all proposed the idea of ​​laying off employees. If it were so easy to lay off employees, the soy sauce factory would not be contracted out. The prerequisite for contracting out a soy sauce factory is that employees cannot be fired without a legitimate reason," said Li An.

"You are not trying to trick me by looking for me. Besides, I have a job now. I drive for the leaders of foreign companies and earn thousands of yuan a month easily." Jiang Cheng closed the file, threw it on Li An's desk and said.

"Jiang Cheng, stop playing those tricks on me. I've already asked about your connections in Jiang Donglai. If I can get them to sell it there. There are many people in this soy sauce factory, but they can expand the production line and increase output." Li An said.

Jiang Cheng just smiled when he heard what Li An said. He understood why he called him here. He mainly wanted him to find a sales channel, but of course the contract was also real.

So I asked about the specific situation. It was impossible for Jiang Cheng to "resign" and go to work as the director of the soy sauce factory. And it was impossible for Li An to instigate him to resign.

In fact, the current director of the soy sauce factory is an acquaintance of Li An, so Jiang Cheng doesn't need to change the director when he takes over the factory. And if someone else takes over the factory, although they can't lay off employees directly, it will be impossible for many workers to cheat and slack off as they did before.

Because it is still a state-owned enterprise, the director of the soy sauce factory really has no way to deal with those lazy employees. Apart from warning and criticizing, he has no power to fire them.

If Jiang Cheng is allowed to take over the contract, he can avoid firing any employees at the beginning. But if those employees are lazy at work, there must be a limit. If they are too lazy, their superiors will support their firing.

It is not acceptable for a loss-making enterprise to receive the contracting fee and still support its employees to receive the contractor's salary without doing much work.

This is the case with many contracted enterprises and factories. After being contracted, employees no longer dare to be lazy as they did before, so output naturally goes up.

But as production increased, sales became a problem, which is why Ang Lee approached Jiang Cheng.

(End of this chapter)